Category: Buy2Greece

Tired of your shoebox in Tin Shui Wai? Here is a chance to upgrade to a plush home in Athens.

Under a new initiative by the Greek government to attract foreign capital and kick-start the beleaguered economy, starting from January next year a property investment of just €250,000 (HK$2.4 million) in the European country will come with residence visas for the applicant, children (aged 25 or below), parents and even in-laws.

According to Greek property listings, HK$2.4 million can buy more than 900 square feet of apartment space in Athens, compared with a 400 sq ft cage somewhere in the New Territories.

To sweeten the deal, Greece has more than 300 days a year of glorious sunshine, bucolic landscapes, and world-class coffee for €1& a cup, down from €4.50 before its economy collapsed.

Athens even has three decent Chinese restaurants, says Stephanos Issaias, the chief executive of Enterprise Greece, a government bureau tasked with promoting the country.

Called the three-generation visa, the programme is the latest sales tool from a Mediterranean government desperate for overseas capital and talent to support a struggling economy. Under the current emigration law, parents are excluded.

In Greece’s case, 29 per cent of its gross domestic product has been wiped out over 27 quarters of economic shrinkage that has driven national unemployment levels up to 28 per cent.

In Hong Kong as part of a China-wide tour to meet immigration agents and investors, Issaias said Greece had cut back on bureaucracy, imposed budget discipline, introduced electronic tax filings and begun to dismantle protectionist regulations. “Greece has moved from red tape to red carpet,” he said.

Chinese corporate investors have already snapped up sections of Piraeus harbour and are now eyeing the country’s airports, railways and energy sector amid plans for a cash-raising privatisation programme.

“We are a developed country with developing-country returns,” said Issaias.

Hopeful for the future, he pointed to EU data that forecasts 0.6 per cent growth for Greece this year, 2.9 per cent next year and 3.7 per cent for 2016.

Chinese nationals were the second-largest group after the Russians to take up residency visas under laws that extend to living rights to the property buyer,spouse and children. In the past four months, Greece has welcomed 456 immigration investors, 119 from China.

Greece, Spain, Portugal, Malta and Cyprus are all heavily marketing similar schemes to wealthy Asians with money to splash and one eye on the attractions of a European bolt-hole.

In Greece’s case, the visa is purely for residential purposes. Spend a minimum 180 days a year for seven years in the country, attend a local school for six years and pass a citizenship test in Greek, and you become a full European Union citizen.

Property prices and rents in Greece have dropped 40 per cent since their peak and labour costs are down 23 per cent amid a continent-wide downturn.

Spending nice vacations is possible not only in Crete or Rhodes, but in Athens as well, with its cheap real estate and beaches that are next door to. But buying a more expensive home, gives already a residence permit allowing access to European round trips, Greek medicine and education. Panagiotis Petrakos, Real estate agent at Riginos Real Estate (Greece) tells to the ee24.com readers about all this issues. – It is known that the Russians prefer the sea. Is it difficult for Athens to compete with resorts offering beach vacation? – Athens may be different. For example, accommodation in a densely populated urbanized center has some certain advantages. But there are suburbs, nestled in a picturesque location near the beach and if you buy a property there, the level of your life will be much higher. Athens is not as popular among Russians as islands or resorts are, because only a few people are aware that there are beaches in Athens! Just in half an hour from the city center. If you have a house in a suburb of Athens, say, in Voula or Vouliagmeni, which are 15 km away from the center, you can walk to the sea. – Who are the foreigners dominating at the Athens housing market? – Athens as one of the oldest and most interesting cities in the world is popular among residents of different countries. Customers come from both, outside the EU – from Russia, China and also from Europe. – What current offers do you have, what are the prices? Is it possible to buy a new property in the heart of Athens, or at best, one has to be content with a renovated housing? – Athens, of course is the ancient city and housing in the secondary market is more widespread there. But sometimes you can find new high-quality property. Of course, if you have a realtor who will “monitor” the situation and respond quickly. As for the prices, its range is truly great, starting from €100,000 (if we talk about liquid housing, of course), but the average price tag of what we sell is €250,000-300,000. Most of the proposals are formed by houses and apartments with an area from 60-80 up to 200-250 sq.m, including the primary market. – How do you feel about the program of issuing the residence permit to buyers purchasing luxury real estate in Greece? – The advantage is that the residence permit holder may travel to other Schengen states for up to 90 days within any six month period and also have an access to health and education services. The residence permit is not provided with a labor permit, except for the executive directors and shareholders who may be engaged in economic activities in the country. I believe that having made this decision, the Greek government has earmarked a friendly attitude towards those who want to buy a home. I think that this measure has a positive impact on both the real estate market in Greece, and potential buyers as well. In general, it is advantageous for all. – And why do you think Greece has made such a step and has accepted the “golden visa”? Is it because of the crisis? – I do not think that the law allowing foreign investors to obtain a residence permit (or else a golden visa as is widely used) was adopted just because of the crisis. We strive to create a favorable investment environment of an open economy attractive for foreign capitals. – Have you ever faced with cases of buying the property and applying for a residence permit? How much time it takes – weeks or months maybe? – Yes, we had such clients and the demand for Greek residence permit exists. The procedure takes few months, but you get a legal basis to remain in the country during all this time. Interview: Kyrill Ozerov, ee24.com

Read more on ee24.com: http://ee24.com/expert/greece/beaches-athens-greece-which-unknown-foreigners/

Crowdfunding, or the use of raising equity or debt through online portals and social network contacts instead of through the regular medium of investment banks, partnerships and financial institutions, has grown much more significantly in 2014 than even its early supporters would have expected. Crowdfunding got its start on sites such as Kickstarter, which allowed inventors and artists to post an idea or project and allowed benefactors to fund them. No promises were made yet often the “investors or benefactors” received a product or service once available. This lack of a promised return opened up a sliver of a door crack in the highly regulated securities world.

The concept has now carried over to real estate, where the loosening of the laws defining how funds and private companies solicit investors in 2013 through changes to the US based Jumpstart Our Businesses (JOBS Act) has allowed crowdfunding to soar as a viable alternative to banks, traditional partnerships and institutional cash. New portals emerge monthly seeking some of the market share for serving this new way of funding enterprises. The websites allow potential investors can learn about and invest in a any scale real estate project from micro deals to the revitalization of a whole neighborhood. See for example, CityShares LLC’s Neighborhood Investment Fund which will invest in a basket of residential and mixed use properties in Brooklyn’s up and coming Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Although the portion of the JOBS act defining how funds can be raised through “nonaccredited investors,” or those incomes less than $200k per year or net worth less than $1MM have yet to be set, dozens of portals have already launched crowdfunding opportunities with as low as a $100 minimum investment.

Crowdnetic, a provider of technology and market data solutions to the global crowdfunding marketplace, found that from October 31, 2013 to May 31, 2014, the number of total crowdfunding portals or funds grew by 336.4% (Rand, 32). According to Nav Athwal, cofounder and CEO of RealtyShares, “Over the last year, crowdfunding for real estate platforms has been responsible for raising over $100 million for hundreds of real estate properties across the U.S.”

The funds work by creating a limited liability company for each property or project, through which investors can commit to funding a project once they have researched and completed internal due diligence. When sufficient commitments are reached the funding is required. Investors receive returns but with few promises, aside from revealing track records of prior investment returns from the same sponsor. Thus, the track record is key and it takes time to be able to pull down a larger funding, but some funds expect to soon approach $100 million via crowdfunding.

In addition to allowing those without significant means to become investors in a project, crowdfunding can also be used as a metric to show that there is community support for a specific project which may be valuable to getting regulatory approvals and permits, and arguing that any profits from a project will go to local pockets. The nature of real estate: tangible, regulated, and well defined by data, make it more compatible with crowdfunding than other type of venture or investments such as software development.

Currently, most portals are independent of specific properties or projects; that is, a developer would come to a portal and sign their project up funding through that specific portal. Fees tend to run 5% to 10% of funds raised plus legal costs for documentation, but this is rather modest compared to typical investment banking costs for start ups and smaller funds. Portals which opened just 2 years ago expecting to be working with 100 developers in a year have far surpassed their goals.

In the future some investment sponsors, developers and building owners may try and become portals themselves to gain direct funding for their projects. We will see a shake out in this industry in terms of portals and probably a few that will be more successful for real estate, but for now it is the wild west and every portal is out to be the last one standing. Industry insiders see the key challenge to crowdfunding’s growth as being the potential for a “bad apple” to tarnish the industry’s reputation. They believe this can be minimized through utilizing education, promotion, and public awareness. Transparency seems to be key to credibility and delivering on what is promised. Specialization by size and geography and property type will surely follow if crowdfunding continues to become a new favored form of capital raising.

Co-written by Brian Sanger, MSRE University of San Diego and Dr. Norm Miller, University of San Diego

VacayStay Connect (formerly Vacation Storebuilder), a distribution and digital marketing platform provider for the vacation rental industry, has announced the expansion of their partnership with HomeAway, Inc. (NASDAQ: AWAY), the world’s leading online marketplace for vacation rentals, to offer thousands of shared ownership resort properties for rent across the global HomeAway® network of sites, including HomeAway.com® and VRBO.com®.

The companies have been in collaboration since 2011 to provide online storefronts and digital marketing services to property management companies and vacation home owners. The expanded partnership offers a new shared ownership distribution channel to millions of leisure travelers who prefer a more home-like experience to traditional hotel stays while on vacation.

“In partnership with HomeAway (AWAY), our team has developed integrations that now enable travelers to book shared ownership resort accommodations online as easily as they would a hotel room,” said VacayStay Connect president and CEO Sunil Aluvila. “This is a large part of our strategy to help shared ownership resorts and homeowners’ associations with inventory so they may fill their accommodations with families looking to vacation in their resorts.”

VacayStay Connect’s technology platform enables integration with developers’ inventory and content management systems, making open reservation times immediately available for travelers to book accommodations online through the HomeAway network of sites.

“Together with VacayStay Connect, we can help timeshare and shared ownership resort developers reach a largely untapped segment of families and groups looking for a resort-style vacation,” said Jon Gray, senior vice president of HomeAway. “They are a great complement to the existing HomeAway vacation rental homes available to travelers and an excellent new distribution channel for timeshare resorts.”

“We are very excited to partner with VacayStay Connect to distribute our resorts’ inventory through the HomeAway Network, and to bring in new customers and connect them to a wide range of shared ownership resort properties they may not have considered before,” commented Jason Toste, Senior VP of Yield Management at Diamond Resorts.

Source: Press Release 

Nowcast combines industry data, proprietary company transactional data and Google Trends data to predict market trends accurately and in real time, Auction.com said. The report predicts real estate activity based on data modeling developed by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian

New Zealand’s tourism industry has made a promising start on achieving its 2025 goal but with strong international competition it can’t afford to be complacent, today’s 2014 TIA Summit has heard.

Tourism Industry Association New Zealand (TIA) Chief Executive Chris Roberts told Summit delegates that the industry needed to stay committed and aligned to achieve the Tourism 2025 goal of almost doubling total tourism revenue to $41 billion a year.

The annual target for growth in international visitor revenue was 6% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) but the actual growth was 7.4% last year, Mr Roberts said.

The domestic tourism target was 4% CAGR. However, growth was only 3.2% in the last 12 months.

“In total, we saw a 5% increase. So we’ve made a promising start but there’s a long way to go.”

The industry was undertaking a wide range of activities to bring Tourism 2025 to life, Mr Roberts said. These were being highlighted on the Tourism 2025 In Action blog.

However, there were many more opportunities the industry could exploit, such as growing New Zealand’s air connectivity. A recent International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecast projected that air routes to, from and within the Asia-Pacific would see an extra 1.8 billion annual passengers by 2034. New Zealand needed to ensure it had the infrastructure and tourism products available to get its share of that growth.

Planned convention centres and the cruise sector offered huge opportunities but New Zealand needed to attract more infrastructure investment.

“The China market continues to evolve at a rapid pace. 100 million Chinese will travel overseas this year and that is expected to double to 200 million by 2020. We need to keep thinking about who we are targeting in China and in emerging markets because every other destination is also eyeing these big prizes,” Mr Roberts said.

TIA was leading a project with the aim of ensuring that the tourism industry had the workers it would need to host growing visitor numbers so that visitors would have outstanding experiences.

“Tourism can and should deliver increased economic activity, jobs and business opportunities and add vibrancy to our communities across the country. But dozens of global destinations are targeting the same opportunities as New Zealand.

“But with the right commitment, alignment and policy settings, our industry can reach its 2025 goals and make an even greater contribution to New Zealand’s overall wellbeing.”

MSC Cruises and the LEGO Group have joined forces to create the shipboard LEGO® playrooms and entertainment options for families with children.

Under the agreement, the LEGO Group will design new play areas on MSC Armonia which is being renewed and lengthened under MSC Cruises’ ambitious Renaissance Programme*.

MSC guests will have the opportunity to discover it from November.  The LEGO Group will supply a broad selection of its world-famous construction toys and games, which are certain to capture the creative imagination of the young and young-at-heart, from 0 – 99 years old.

The agreement comes as MSC Cruises seeks to optimize the overall onboard experience for guest and families by partnering with top global brands that are emblems of excellence in their fields.

MSC Cruises has long made the LEGO toys available on all 12 ships in the fleet, but this is an opportunity to bring MSC guests more dedicated products and areas for younger travellers.

Among a raft of enhancements to create unforgettable, fun and stress-free family cruises, the Renaissance ships will have separate clubs and facilities for five age groups, namely Baby (under 3s); Mini (3-6); Junior (7-11);Young (12-14) and Teen (15-17). A video is now available that describes the Lego experience on board.